MIDI technology has been a stable source of drumming and music sequencing programs for editing, printing, playing and composing music and rhythm for almost twenty years. Some well-meaning music and rhythm tutorial programs, as well as some games, have resulted from this technology. For example, computer aided instruction, including drumpad or drum kit instruction, has been used in the home market for various subjects for several years.
In the area of music and rhythm instruction, the computer has been used, for the most part, to provide a student with an interactive view of musical notation. Other systems have a series of lights or playing illustrations to attempt to communicate to the user which pad should be played next. These programs and systems, while allowing the student to practice and gain feedback, generally fail to involve musical novices sufficiently, especially with regard to rhythm and percussion instruments. Several typing tutorials have enjoyed great success using such methods, but drumpad and rhythm tutorials have not been as successful, due to several key problems inherent with the subject.
A major problem with these prior art learning systems is that they fail to take into account several important differences between learning to type and learning to play music or rhythm. The first most obvious difference is that musical notes cannot merely be played in a correct sequence, but must be played in a rhythmic pattern in relation to the notes before and after it. This correct timing of the correct notes is one of the most difficult aspects to teach in music, by any means, and up to now, few applications have been able to adequately address this challenge, and then only in isolation. The second challenge is that most programs start with musical notation to teach a song or rhythm to the user. Reading and understanding musical notation is a bit like reading Beowolf in the Old English, and it's roots are just as old, in fact the five line staff originally represented a monk's hand in the middle ages, and has been adapted to deal with all the musical innovations since. Then there is the problem of a notational system originally designed to convey pitch for voice, hence the concepts of higher and lower. With rhythmic notation, the pitch axis is used to represent the different rhythmic instruments like cowbell or snare. But on the drumpad, the instrumentation is experienced perpendicularly to the notation, i.e., left to right instead of lower to higher. This difference, while easy conceptually, is a difficult transition to make visually and experientially. Such is the combined difficulty that fewer than 20 percent of all drum players are estimated to be able to read rhythmic notation fluently.
For the novice player, then, there are at least four additional challenges to learning the drumpad compared to learning to type. They must learn the pads to the drumpad, they must learn rhythmic or musical notation, the notation is perpendicular to their drumpad, and they must hit the right pad(s) at the right time. The frustration with these simultaneous challenges usually causes most users to quit, and certainly the task seems more like work than play.
Examples of prior patents in the general area of rhythm instruction are outlined below. Each of these references is incorporated by reference for its supporting teachings.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,342,665, is a drum rhythm game apparatus and a guitar rhythm game apparatus each includes a staging operating unit.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,225,547, is a rhythm game apparatus, rhythm game method, computer-readable storage medium and instrumental device.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,177,623, is a music reproducing system, rhythm analyzing method and storage medium.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,864,868, to Contois, discloses a computer system and method for controlling a media playing device.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,627,335, is an electronic music system has an input device (12), one or more computer storage media, a rhythm generator (100), a pitch selector (108), and a sound generator (102).
U.S. Pat. No. 5,392,682, to McCartney-Hoy, discloses a computerized musical keyboard and a method for using same to play or to learn to play a keyboard.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,183,398, to Monte, et al., discloses an apparatus and method for instruction of a student which includes interactive guidance.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,107,743, to Decker, discloses a keyboard teaching aid having a panel designed to fit over the keys on an existing keyboard so that lights mounted on a panel having more than one color or shape may be located directly above the keyboard keys to be played.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,997,374, to Simone, discloses a teaching device that includes a changeable two channel prerecorded program source, and a console unit including a work booklet.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,781,099, to Koike, discloses a musical quiz apparatus that presents a question chord in sound and a trainee answers by depressing the keys of the chord constituting notes on the keyboard.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,416,182, to Wise, et al. discloses a keyboard teaching device for the self-instruction of a student of keyboard musical instruments is provided.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,366,741 to Titus, discloses an electronic keyboard having a keyboard and an electronic keyboard circuit connected to a micro-processor used to control a CRT device to provide a video note display concurrently with the depression of one or more keys.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,331,062, to Rogers, discloses an apparatus for visually displaying music notes on a note display panel mounted on an electronic keyboard with a support arm.
JP2001096061, is a machine and method of rhythm game, readable recording medium and operation device.
EPO997870A, is a TV monitor (2) outputs various types of images relating to the rhythm game.
Each of these prior art references disclose improvements in the area of interactive musical instruction. However, none of the foregoing instruction aids have adequately addressed the inherent challenges of learning rhythms and rhythmic notation.